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It’s always nice to have someone from the outside to give good counsel and issue timely warnings. Especially if, like Raghuram Rajan, the outsider is actually an insider who knows the system inside-out.

While all the major countries, pinched by Trump’s unilateral high tariffs, took retaliatory measures by raising the tariff on imports from USA, India went one step forward and two steps back. Twice, it suspended its decision to impose high tariff on 29 items from the US. By the original schedule, high tariff was to be imposed from 4th August. It was deferred to 18th September and further to 2nd November.

Britain is on the brink of “social collapse” after “eight years of uninterrupted austerity” caused by brutal Tory spending cuts, Labour council leaders warned. Twenty-six leaders of Labour-controlled councils have signed an open letter calling on the government to “recognise the catastrophic impact” that austerity has had on local authorities across Britain.

Judge Bret M. Kavanaugh and Bishop Franco Mulakkal. Two powerful men. Both wear a collar and for the time being both look collared. Arrayed against them are two women and #MeToo. A Catholic nun of Kerala and a professor in Palo Alto University, California. The women have drawn parallels. But they have vulnerabilities. Accusations have been levelled against them of being the cat’s paw. That they are “lying”. In the nun’s case, victim-shaming has passed acceptable levels. But then, is there an acceptable level of victim-shaming?

Okay! No need for anybody to talk on behalf of the holy cow. Joyful Swami Nityananda, of the “in compromising position with an actress” fame, says within the year he will have cows and bulls talking! In chaste Sanskrit and hoary Tamil (Imagine the Jallikattu!). Not only cows and bulls, also monkeys, tigers and lions will get phonetically-perfect vocal chords courtesy the Swami.

Ethics and morals get pushed under the carpet as the country makes a seamless stride into the 2019 Lok Sabha Poll Campaign, the ruling majoritarian BJP bracing itself more in a fire-fighting mode while its hated adversary, the Congress is engaged in digging for more scams and policy bunglings to throw back at the Modi Government.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has done something unprecedented. She is openly defaming her Ministry’s high tech undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for its technological incompetence to defend the selection of Anil Ambani’s new company as the offset partner in the Rafale deal. What is shocking is that the Defence Minister in her interaction with the women journalists in Delhi early this week remarked that the HAL did not have required capability to produce Rafale and further later she observed that HAL and Dassault could not agree on production terms, so they could not go together. The responsibility of not concluding the agreement lay with the UPA government and not her government.

What do you think youngsters got a sneak-peak at history not written thus far the other day? Historians like Romilla Thapar, Irfan Habib and Ramchandra Guha must be wondering how come they missed this chapter – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh fought for India’s Independence and its founder KB Hegdewar waged a war against the British Raj the same like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, as surely as E = MC square!

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Will the Kerala Police arrest Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who has been accused of multiple rapes of a nun? That is the question uppermost in the minds of Keralites.

BHOPAL: While Congressmen are celebrating the successful visit of Congress president Rahul Gandhi to Bhopal, angry demonstration against chief minister Shiv Raj Singh Chouhan at many places are causing worry for the BJP. On the day Rahul Gandhi was being welcomed by the cheering crowd stones were pelted on Chouhan’s cavalcade at Mahidpur town in Ujjain district.